It seems that just about everyone building a new Core 2 Duo system wants to overclock it and why not, these processors scale very well. Unfortunately, given the large amount of e-mails we continue to receive regarding this topic, it would appear that not everyone is sharing in the success that we had with our E6700 many months ago. Shortly after reviewing the E6700 back in July 2006, we decided to overclock this 2.66GHz dual-core processor. Using nothing more than an after market heatsink and fan combo we pushed this processor all the way to 3.66GHz, at which frequency it delivered performance once unthinkable.

The article itself was more about showing off what the E6700 could do and how it performed at this frequency, rather than an overclocking guide. In fact, the overclocking steps were quite easy and we did briefly make mention of how this overclock was achieved. However as mentioned, to this day we still receive countless e-mails from readers claiming to have purchased exactly the same hardware that we used, yet struggled to even reach 3.20GHz. After much back and forth with the e-mail, we were able to help many of our readers achieve at least 3.50GHz.

Many seem more excited about overclocking the much more affordable Core 2 Duo “E6300” processor, which costs just $180 US compared to the $510 US the E6700 will set you back. Therefore, we have decided to write a comprehensive, step by step E6300 overclocking guide for beginners. Rather than selecting the best motherboard and memory combo, which would easily cost many times more than the processor itself, we have dug up what we believe is the best value overclocking motherboard at this point in time, along with a good value 1GB DDR2 memory kit.

The motherboard of choice was the Gigabyte 965P-DS3 (2.0), which is already a popular choice among overclockers. Priced at $135 also makes this motherboard quite affordable for a high-end Intel LGA775 motherboard. While the motherboard is a critical component that plays a vital role in the success of any overclock, the memory is also very important. Unfortunately, any memory designed for overclocking tends to be very pricey. This being the case we have decided to take some good quality DDR2-800 memory and simply overclock that. The G.Skill (F2-6400CL4D-1GBPK) 1GB DDR2-800 kit is very good value at just $125 US.

This memory is very capable of operating at 1000MHz if need be, using CAS 5-5-5-15 timings with 2.2 volts of power. Of course we will explain more about the timings and frequencies that this memory can operate at. This article will be based off the “F9” BIOS revision for the Gigabyte 965P-DS3 (2.0), which was released on the 27th of December 2006. This is the latest BIOS revision for this motherboard and it brings official 1333MHz FSB support, which will enabled this motherboard to support the upcoming Core 2 Duo processors that will use this new front side bus. For now let's move on to explore the BIOS…